Studies have shown spending time in nature has many benefits including relieving stress and improving mood.
Lexington author and educator Doris Settles shares her ideas on connecting with the outdoors in her talk which is titled ‘My Dirty Life’
On a Monday evening in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, Lisa Williams walks through her garden of well over 200 plants. Williams has been gardening for 30 years and said she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You know, it just helps me center myself and I find peace in my garden. No matter what time of year, I can come out here and find peace. That’s the main thing. Anytime I have a struggle going on in my life it just helps me to clear my head,” said Williams.
The grandmother of two enjoys being in nature so much, she even works part-time at a greenhouse. Her other part-time job is at a law firm. Whether it’s a hike in the woods with her grandchildren, planting flowers, or harvesting vegetables from her garden Williams has to be outside.
“I’m a grandmother of two young grandchildren and we work hard to get them out in nature. We feel like that’s important and to get them away from the screens, you know the time we spend with them. And we just like to get them outside and we hike trails and we do outdoor scavenger hunts to get them outside,” said Williams.
On this night Williams is at the Erlanger Branch of the Kenton County Public Library. That’s where Lexington author and educator Doris Settles is giving a talk she calls ‘My Dirty Life’. It focuses on her passion for gardening and spending time in nature.
"Hi everybody, I am Doris Settles and I live in Lexington, Kentucky. I’m a master gardener and I’ve gardened since I was little and I mean really little," said Settles.
Settles said,"I think you need to as an individual living in this world. I think you need to understand and embrace the entire world and that includes the plant world as well."
Settles is passionate about connecting with nature and shares with the audience at the library tips on what she’s learned as a master gardener and why being outdoors is helpful on so many levels.
“There are mental health benefits to it. There are obviously emotional benefits to it. Aside from the food you can grow and the beauty that you create. Research has shown definitive connections to maybe it’s the microbes in the soil when you’re digging in it. It’s such a tactile thing to do. And then being able to go from bare dirt to something that’s usable in your life is truly empowering for the person that planted that seed,” explained Settles.
The 73-year-old said her talk ‘My Dirty Life’ was inspired by the work of Richard Louv author of the 2005 international best-seller, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature -Deficit Disorder. Louv said children and adults suffer from not having enough contact with the natural world.
“Study after study has shown that connection to nature reduces the symptoms of attention deficit disorder for instance, reduces stress, reduces the chances of myopia, it’s a long list. When I wrote Last Child which was published in 2005 I could only find about 60 studies in the world, that focused on the benefits to health of connection to the natural world, only 60, something that large. Today, there’s around 1300 studies,” reported Louv.
Louv is co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Children & Nature Network, an organization helping build an international movement to connect children, families, and communities to nature. The award-winning journalist coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder.
“It’s the impact on humans of our alienation from the natural world. And that impact comes in many forms. As I mentioned, when you look at the studies and the impact on human physical, psychological, cognitive health and then you take nature away you have in a sense people who are less alive and that’s my definition of nature-deficit disorder," reported Louv.
Master gardener and author Doris Settles takes the work of Louv very seriously. In addition to giving talks on the how-to of gardening, she has written a children’s book titled Leira Clara’s Flowers.
“I really was seeing the disconnect more and I was doing talks in the education and social sciences and juvenile justice area on the nature-deficit disorder. So I started feeling a pull to write a children’s book, to do something to get them outside and digging in the dirt. So, that’s how Leira Clara’s Flowers came about. I learned to garden from my grandmothers, so Leira Clara learns to garden from her grandmothers," said Settles.
Settles is also president of Celebrate Lexington. She said the non-profit focuses on expanding the understanding of beauty and beauty in nature in the Lexington area. The organization spearheads several activities including planting flowers
“We have now planted 6000 daffodils in two locations in Fayette County and we start a third this fall,” said Settles.
Whether it’s planting a garden or watching the clouds, Doris Settles and Richard Louv report that there are numerous health benefits for kids and adults when connecting with nature.
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